Still Here
by Teobi
Summary: Gordon thinks about The Accident that nearly killed him and some of his feelings about his brothers.


_This one-shot is totally inspired by all the writers who have uploaded work lately or have messaged me and kept my spirits up. Loopstagirl, Sam1, JonasGrl, my best mates Spev and Fran, FABreader and Kaet and LiGi and the John's Gay Aura Club, MistyToryRabiyah, cullen lover, all the younger writers who are just starting out and finding their feet in this crazy but cool fandom. __(LiGi, thank you for your review, it wouldn't let me reply directly by private message!)_

_It's a ramble really...Gordon thinking aloud. Written on a Sunday, which is always a good day for thinking. Hope you like. Xx_

_Based on TV-Verse. Thunderbirds characters sadly don't belong to me!_

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There aren't many people who would do this particular job. Thunderbird 4 is tiny. Barely room to swing a cat, as Alan puts it, not that I'd allow any cat swinging in here or anywhere, for that matter. Ever tried to swing a cat? I can tell you from experience, they don't like it. So to put it another way, you can't stretch out your arms without touching the sides. Couple that with drifting along seventy feet below the surface and it's easy to feel as though you're trapped in an underwater coffin.

Of course, I almost did end up in a coffin, after the accident. The Accident, I should say. The one that nearly made me a whole head shorter. Broke my ribs, my shoulderblades, my collarbones, my pelvis...approximately 208 bones in the human body and I broke almost all of 'em. I should have been in the Guinness Book of Records for that achievement.

The process of rehabilitation and the months and months of physiotherapy made me into the man I am today. When shit hurts, I fight back. I used to say "sure, whatever, things will work out." But now? Like hell will they work out. I don't have time to wait for that. Nowadays I want to make things happen.

Do you know who I respect the most? John. Yes, John. Ol' J.T. Space Cadet. Luke Skywalker. Mr. Head-In-The-Clouds. Put quite simply, John rocks. He doesn't even have to say anything, he just looks at you. He gets the measure of people straight away. It can be slightly disconcerting for the uninitiated. Sometimes I think he's actually psychic, and I don't normally believe in that BS. After The Accident, John would yawn loudly and say, "are you still here?" whenever I annoyed him.

Still here, Johnny, still here. Someone has to torture you!

Scott laid an egg when I was hospitalized. You should have seen him, oh boy. I think he read all the medical journals he could get hold of. I'm sure he now writes articles for The Lancet in his spare time. I swear I even saw him tap the ECG monitor to check it was working properly.

Still here, Scotty, still here. Thanks for checking that machine.

Virgil brought me paper and crayons. Yep, Crayola crayons. Like when I was six years old. Uh, Virgil, hello? But I loved him for it. I loved mixing red with yellow to make orange. I loved mixing blue with yellow to make green. I loved mixing red with blue to make purple. I'd forgotten how much I loved it, to be honest. Get yourself a box of Crayolas one day. Make as many different colours as you can. I believe Virgil even took my Crayola masterpieces home with him and stuck 'em to the fridge with letter magnets. How old was I? Eighteen. Big brothers never stop tormenting you.

Still here, Virgil, still here. Spell it out in fridge magnets.

As for Alan, he was scared to come visit me at first. Who could blame him? He was still very much a kid. He'd never seen someone almost smashed to pieces before, let alone a brother. There were times when I almost felt like apologising for my predicament. Then one day, we began singing that old song, but with our own words.

"The leg bone's not connected to the hip bone. The hip bone's not connected to the back bone. The arm bone's not connected to the shoulder bone." And so on and so forth. We went through all the bones that weren't connected to each other. We'd get clever. Metacarpals. Metatarsals. Phalanges. Patellae. Intermediate cuneiform bones. It was very boring for the nurses, but I like to think Alan passed his Biology exams because of me.

Still here, Alan. Still here. Still keeping you grounded, little man.

The Accident focused me. It taught me how to concentrate, to set goals, even little ones. At first it was how to get through the day without succumbing to the pain. Then it was how to forgive myself for my momentary lapses of reason. Then it was how to deal with the frustration of being a bit slower than everyone else. Dealing with the anger and the guilt was tough. I couldn't forgive myself for a long time for what I put my family through. Knowing that they didn't blame me somehow made it worse. Their acceptance of the facts made my blood boil. Why wasn't anyone raging and screaming? Why were they all being so calm?

Well, I found out later that yes, they did rage and scream. They just didn't do it in front of me. I wish they had, but they wanted to spare me. For myself, I would have been happy just to see a little bit of their indignant rage. Because I was feeling that way too.

Group scream!

So the years went by, and now we're a fighting force to be reckoned with. International Rescue- the words bring comfort and hope to the victims of disaster and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. The accident that happened to me has happened to others, and I've been there to disengage their broken bodies from the wreckage. I've seen how close I came to being wiped out. International Rescue would still have gone ahead, maybe they'd have named something after me. Ha ha...I can just hear John saying, "I'll name my ass after you."

Thunderbird 4 is my sanctuary, in a way. Sometimes I'll go to the pod and just sit there, pretending I'm underwater. Drifting along, lost in the blue. Swimming with the fishes. Thinking how lucky I was, how lucky I am. How calm and peaceful I can make myself feel, once I forget about the pain.

Still here, still here.


End file.
